Fall, or Dodge in Hell, is a novel by Neal Stephenson. It contains and refers to some characters and families who appeared in Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle and so may be considered a continuation of their overall storyline. The novel also makes frequent references to and at times roughly parallels the story of John Milton's Paradise Lost and to the Bible and references to folklore antecedent to the stories and mythologies underlying both Judaism and Christianity.
Set in the future portion of the 21st century, the story focuses on Richard "Dodge" Forthrast, who became a billionaire developing computer games. Dodge falls brain-dead after undergoing an unspecified medical procedure and his family discovers that his will specifies that he is to be cryonically frozen until such time as he can be revived.
After substantial legal and technological investigation, the involved parties determine that Dodge's revival will be virtual: the patterns of the neurons in his brain will be mapped and digitally re-created. At the time of Dodge's death, technology is insufficient to accomplish this goal. It falls to Dodge's family, his professional protege and his family, a business rival, and Enoch Root (and likely the entirety of Root's Societas Eruditorium) to create and implement the various technologies needed to support the complex endeavor.
The story proceeds thereafter on two interconnected storylines, one in the physical world and the other in the digital space occupied initially by Dodge, and later by others whose minds are also digitally rendered into the virtual afterlife. Explicit reference is made to the works of Immanuel Kant concerning the manner in which human consciousness understands the world, and Stephenson notes in his own comments to the work that he used concepts from David Deutsch's The Fabric of Reality in creating the concepts underlying the novel.